Milestones

Tuesday

Jul 13, 2010 at 4:19 PMJul 13, 2010 at 4:23 PM

Dozens of firefighters and other emergency workers followed former Bayou Cane Fire Chief Jerry Gautreaux’s casket March 5 in a funeral procession that ended at a tomb just yards from the station where he spent decades serving the public.Gautreaux, 59, died four days earlier at his home near the fire department’s central station on Main Street after a yearlong battle with brain cancer. He served 41 years with the department, most of them as chief.Gautreaux became chief in 1972 and was the department’s first paid employee. Over the next three decades he helped expand the department and hired paid firefighters to meet the demands of the growing district.Another legacy Gautreaux will leave is the Team Spirit Leadership Conference, a youth program he co-founded about 20 years ago that became a pilot for the rest of the nation.“Mr. Jerry reached out to those who society said deserved his help the least,” said Jeremy Arp, who was one of the first teens in the program and who will take over leadership of the conference. “He spent time with them and became the father that maybe they didn’t have and became the trusted adult that they could look up to and talk to and ultimately that they could trust.”

Family and friends remember Lorraine Kimbrell, Terrebonne's first elected parish councilwoman, as a hard-fighting, hard-working public servant.“She was given a hard time at first, but my mom was like, ‘You'd better get over it,' ” daughter Kim Kimbrell told The Courier and Daily Comet. “She was proud of it.”Lorraine, 66, succumbed to pneumonia March 4. Elected to the council in 1988, she served two four-year terms.“Lorraine was her own person, and if she believed in something she was not afraid to confront people about it,” said J.B. Breaux, who served with her on the Parish Council.“She was an honest person and a hardworking councilwoman,” Breaux said. “When anyone in her district wanted something, she researched it very carefully. She was very outspoken, but in that way she was taking care of her constituents.”

He was an established singer, a professional journalist, a graphic artist, a black belt in karate and a pilot, among a litany of other occupations and pursuits. But most of all, for those who knew Timothy Melancon well, he was a selfless person who was always there when needed.Melancon, 68, died in his sleep of a blocked aorta March 11 at his home in Raceland. He left behind a full life, family members said, with experiences ranging from serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War to working for a newspaper in New Mexico.“He was an adventurer with a million-dollar smile,” said Melancon's goddaughter, Laurie Matherne. “And he always had a joke.”He spent much of his adult life in the West, leaving his Raceland home as a teen to live in New Mexico and Colorado. After returning home at age 53, he would perform to a packed house at the now-closed Courthouse Lounge in Thibodaux, leaving the audience howling in laughter.Melancon was a serious song writer. He wrote and recorded the Cajun hit “Sweet Marie.”What Melancon is missed most for, his family said, is the way he stepped in and took care of those in need, including his mother, Leonelle.“He was so selfless,” Conner said. “To give of himself was just natural. For the last 10 years, he was always taking her to the doctor. He was just there if anyone needed him.”